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Show in my father's house/ 213 back, his skin became clammy, presaging the pain. After each visit, the doctor complained. "He ought to be here, where he can receive constant attention. I don't think you realize how close he came to losing his life, Mrs. Allred." And he would explain, again, that the bullet had missed a major artery by this fraction, his heart by that fraction. My mother bit her lip and shook her head, not knowing what to say. She wore her embarrassment home. "They must think I don't care about him," she said after one hospital ordeal. "They must think we're a mighty strange family...." And she wept into her hands until Saul stopped moaning and fell asleep. Saul recovered slowly and went back to work long before he was well, determined to work through the autumn and enroll in winter-quarter classes at the University of Utah. When he left for Salt Lake, Aunt Helga returned, bringing a few of her things and marvelous news. Brilliance washed over her face as she told us, "The Lord's promise to your father and me has been fulfilled. We have been blessed with a child." She was expecting in the early spring and would have to 'hide out' - as my mother had done when she was expecting me. She resumed her old bedroom in our Nevada duplex, planning to stay for the winter. "I'll have to keep indoors all the time," Aunt Helga sighed to my mother. "We can't have anyone from the casino catch sight of me, or you know what they'd think!" That October, when Aunt Helga's loosest clothing no longer hid her fulsome figure, my mother was asked to play a piano solo |